


One More Long Goodbye

by imparfait



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5821225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imparfait/pseuds/imparfait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't forget things he wishes he could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's probably the worst in the summer, when the days are long and empty, when the heat beats down on Morty, makes him feel like he's swimming, boiling away in the humidity.  He can't forget things he wishes he could: long days in the garage with Rick, no school to duck out of, just weeks on end that felt like an endless dream.

He graduated last month; he always expected Rick to be there, half-cocked and angry about it.  No _congratulations, Morty_ , from Rick, no.  That's not what he needed.  Not the kind of praise he was looking for, but the kind he got in spades from Summer, his Mom, his Dad.

It's all over now, he thinks.  He sits in the garage some days, looking at the tools and empty boxes his Dad's filled it with now.  He misses it.  Being away.  Running from things.  Hiking his way across the intergalactic wilderness.  The world feels small now, unconscionably so-- _unconscionable, yeah, Morty, do you think you're such a genius now?  That's five whole goddamned syllables, don't hurt yourself,_ he hears the Rick in his head say, the only Rick alive now, at least here.

He's spent the summer on the roof, waiting out something that won't ever happen.  Staring up at the sky like maybe if he wishes hard enough it'll open up and another Rick, any other Rick, will come cartwheeling down out of the heavens and pull him away from all of this.  He wonders if there's any left to save him at all.  He doesn't even belong here.  He's buried in the back yard.  So's Rick, another Rick, and if he could pull some Pet Cemetery shit, he'd do it, no questions asked.

It's overcast; it's been a rainy summer and that's probably for the better.  It makes the air feel worse, he starts pouring sweat the moment he walks out the front door every morning, but he can't see the stars at night.  It's easier for him not to miss it if it isn't right there in front of his face.  He thinks, maybe, it's not such a bad idea for him to get out of town.  Run for the hills.  Run as far as he can with the means that he has--six hundred dollars, saved through his shitty job delivering pizzas on Friday nights (instead of adventures), or the four thousand dollars that's left over from Rick's life insurance settlement (a shitty consolation prize).

He can't stop himself from wanting to go back to the stars.  The world feels so fucking small now that he's been across the multiverse. He's going to spend the rest of his life on this stupid rock. He's going to blow his life savings on a bachelor's in anthropology instead of doing the thing Rick would want him to do with his life insurance and spend it all on booze and games at Blips and Chitz. 

It's all just moping; he's _been_ moping for weeks upon weeks but it's worse now, it's mildew growing on him, making him feel gross and ugly and alone. His Dad tries to help, like he always does.  Like Morty could ever stand to be around Jerry on his best days. He's well-meaning, an idiot, and so fucking superficially thrilled that Morty sometimes wishes that Rick would come back from the dead just to punch Jerry square in the jaw, just once.

They haven't been the same since Rick died.  They try to hide it, they do okay, but Morty knows what to look for.  He sees it in the things they don't do, the things they avoid, and the way that Summer is maybe too loving; his mother is too absent; his father is too happy.

Or maybe Jerry's just an asshole.  Morty hasn't made up his mind yet.

Summer finds him on the roof, the night of the Fourth of July, nursing whiskey in Rick's old flask and staring up at the clouds.  He's sick of her, of her face and her concerned frown and the way she says his name, drowning in pity.  The roof is supposed to be a sanctuary, the way the garage used to be, maybe; away from the rest of them.

"What do you want?"  He sounds flat, even to himself; too disinterested to even be hateful about it.

She bites her lip and shakes her head, leans hard against the shingles like she doesn't quite trust the ladder.  "You're not doing so great, Morty," she says.

Like she would know.  Like she would _care_.  She's gone now, out in Philly for two-thirds of the year, at Temple, not giving a fuck what happens to Morty or home at all.  He pulls off the flask again, maybe to spite her, but he feels too dead inside to really care what she thinks.

"I can't see the stars tonight," he tells her.  "I still dream about it."

"So do I."  She shifts, and for a second Morty has a horrible thought that she's made of shadow, of memory; that she's dead, too.  "I can't take you there.  I'm not Rick." 

_No shit,_ says the echo of Rick in Morty's head.  He shakes his head, pushes the memories away.  "No, you can't."

"We can go somewhere," she says, suddenly desperate.  Morty doesn't understand why.  "You and me.  Tonight.  We can just go."  

She reaches out.  He sees something in her eyes, the same kind of yearning that burns inside of him and makes him sick with how much he needs adventure, to keep moving, to feel so tiny in the face of the multiverse.  Suffocate on the truth of the universe.

Summer isn't him.  She doesn't have the memories.  But she's seen enough; she knows.

He hands her the flask. It's like a promise.


	2. Chapter 2

They swipe the whiskey before they go.  It's the last of Rick's good stuff.  Morty isn't sure where he got it from, probably not Earth, probably not in this dimension, and he's been rationing it since Rick died last spring.  It tastes horrible.  Morty treasures it most out of everything Rick left behind.  He thinks that’s fair because Rick treasured it, too.

He doesn't know where they're going, how far they're running, but Summer grabs a change of clothes so Morty does, too.  Summer leaves a note that Morty doesn’t bother reading.  They steal the car.  It’s reckless; it’s insane.  He feels alive.

They don't talk much.  Summer turns down the radio and turns up the air conditioner; she drives in a straight line, not taking conspicuous pulls off the flask, not even when Morty offers.  He keeps it to himself, drinking slowly.  Not asking questions.  Eventually he falls asleep, head resting against the window, listening to whatever garbage Summer tried to pass off as music.  It’s soothing, though, like a lullabye, and he lets it take him.

He wakes up drooling on the glass, blinking sunlight out of his eyes, and tries to swallow the awful taste of morning breath mixed with stale whiskey.  He almost chokes on it, wishes for something to wash the taste away.  Like a fucking angel there’s Summer, tapping on the window and shaking a bottle of Gatorade at him.  He fumbles for the window button.  Almost cries with relief when the window rolls down and Summer thrusts the bottle at him.

“Morning, sunshine,” she says as he struggles with the cap.  “There’s Advil in the glovebox.”

“Where are we?” he asks.  He sounds like shit, hoarse and clogged.  He thinks he might puke, maybe; his stomach is tied in knots.

“State line.  Couple more hours to go.  I had to stop for gas.”  

It was full dark when he fell asleep, well after midnight but not so late that he thinks they’ve only just found the edges of Indiana.  “What state?”

She levels a look at him that’s so shockingly like his Mom’s he almost cries.  “Pennsylvania.”

He takes another gulp of Gatorade and considers that.  Summer goes to Lehigh, spends winters and springs in the middle of Pennsylvania, which he knows she regrets.  He thought maybe they’d go somewhere exotic, to a mountaintop or a beach.  Into the deserts or the wild west.  Not east, not toward the cities.  New York, he thinks, is just a bigger kind of Indianapolis.

He feels that way about every city.  Even the sort that aren’t on Earth.

It takes him until he sees the  _ Welcome to Pennsylvania! _ sign to muster up the nerve to ask Summer where they’re going.

“Cherry Springs,” she says.

He doesn’t know what that is, but he wonders if he should, so he doesn’t ask.  They drive for a while, quiet, Alanis Morissette pumping out of the speakers.  He kind of wants another drink.  It’s going on ten when his phone finally rings. It’s Mom, of course, because they stole the car, they took off in the middle of the night.  Whatever Summer’s note said, it wouldn’t be enough for Mom.

He ignores it, and ignores it again when she calls back a second time.  He wouldn't know what to tell her, even if he knew what sort of crackpot plan Summer was brewing.  It’s been a long time since he knew what to say to his mom, anyway.  Not since Rick died.  There isn’t anything  _ to _ say.  Sure, Rick was her father and she had to feel some pain, but he was more than just family to Morty.  Rick had the keys to the multiverse. Unlocked a kind of burning curiosity inside of Morty, something that is smothered now, going out.  It hurts more than he expected it would.

“Mom’s calling,” he eventually says, trying to ignore the way his pulse is pounding in the back of his head.  He wonders if this was how Rick felt all the time, silently marvels at how he could even manage to think.  Morty can barely parse a sentence.

Summer hmms, mutters something under her breath that Morty can’t make out.  He bites back his own curiosity.  He wants her to say something, anything--belittle him, make him feel small, make him feel brave by accident.  

She doesn’t.  Instead, she pulls over at the next rest stop and gets out of the car, takes her phone with her, and disappears behind the covered picnic tables. Morty wonders what she's going to say to Mom, if she has some sort of explanation at all for this madness. 

When she gets back in the car she turns the engine over and pulls back out into traffic without a word.  He supposes he doesn’t have any right to know what was said between them, but he wants to.  He drinks, because that’s what he does now.  It’s a shit coping mechanism but at least when his head is swimming in ethanol, everything’s too dull, especially his capacity to care about anything.

Time passes.  The music changes.  Summer pulls off I-80 long before she should if they were going to Bethlehem, and the grassy stretch of nothing turns into an endless forest.  

“Where are we?” he asks.  He sounds slurred, even to himself, and he feels a tiny tug of shame when Summer frowns.

“Allegheny,” she says.  “I came here for a class in the spring.”

It’s pretty in that American way, too earthy and familiar to hold his attention for long.  There’s no faerie lights in the trees, no creepy-crawlies hiding in the bush.  He doesn’t feel scared, doesn’t feel engaged.  His eyelids flutter, made heavy from the rhythm of the car and the quiet soft rock Summer insists on.  He slurs an apology, half-drunk, half-asleep, and lets himself fall back into dreams.

He dreams of where they’ll wind up, somewhere deep in the woods, lost in purple trees with bright red leaves, and there’s Rick in the middle of it all, hacking and holding out his hand for them.  He knows it’s a dream; he doesn’t want to wake up.


End file.
